More Than 500,000 Infected With Cholera in Yemen

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A child infected with cholera received treatment at a hospital in Sana, Yemen, earlier this month. More than 500,000 Yemenis have been stricken by the disease, and nearly 2,000 have died.CreditYahya Arhab/European Pressphoto Agency

Cholera is endemic in Yemen, which is on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula and across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. But the disease, caused by a bacterium in contaminated water, has spread rapidly since April.

Civil war and bombing by neighboring Saudi Arabia have crippled much of the country’s water-distribution system, destroyed hospitals and forced vast numbers of people to flee their homes.

By contrast, cholera has killed about 10,000 people in Haiti since it was reintroduced by United Nations peacekeepers in 2010, triggering that country’s first outbreak in 50 years.

The W.H.O. and partner organizations are setting up treatment clinics in Yemen offering intravenous and oral rehydration. Cholera can kill within hours, but more than 99 percent of victims who reach the centers survive, according to the W.H.O.

Chaos is so pervasive in Yemen that over 30,000 doctors and nurses there have gone unpaid for more than a year.

“They must be paid their wages so that they can continue to save lives,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general.